Pakistan PM says to lose job if convicted of contempt

Pakistan PM says to lose job if convicted of contempt
Pakistan’s beleaguered prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani has conceded he would automatically lose his job if he is convicted of contempt, as he prepared to face the Supreme Court on Monday.

The top court threw out a last-ditch appeal by Mr Gilani on Friday and is now set to indict him for contempt over his refusal to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.

If convicted, Mr Gilani faces six months in jail and disqualification from office in a case that has rocked his government and is expected to force elections within months in the country plagued by al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Asked during an interview with Al Jazeera television at the weekend whether he would quit if found guilty, he conceded a conviction would lead to him losing his job â€“ but said he could leave office without actually resigning.

“Certainly then there is no need to step down if I am convicted, I am not supposed to be even a member of the parliament,” Mr Gilani said.

The Supreme Court has ordered Mr Gilani appear for the framing of contempt charges over the government’s two-year refusal to ask Swiss authorities to reopen graft cases against Zardari.

Mr Gilani insisted that Mr Zardari as president had immunity from prosecution both in Pakistan and abroad, adding that cases against his boss were “politically motivated”.

“Whatever the charges that were levelled against him, he fought those cases in the court, he was exonerated. There had been lot of cases against him and they were all politically motivated,” Mr Gilani said.

Zardari and his late wife, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, were suspected of using Swiss bank accounts to launder about $12 million in alleged bribes paid by companies seeking customs inspection contracts in Pakistan in the 1990s.

The Swiss shelved the cases in 2008, when Zardari became head of state, and a prosecutor in Switzerland has said it will be impossible to reopen them as long as he remains head of state and is immune from prosecution.